Always Stories…

I’ve been out of the coffee shop circuit for a while (the spontaneous crying made it difficult to be in public), but this morning I’ve set myself up at a different coffee shop than usual, and I’m remembering what’s so awesome about coffee shops: eavesdropping on other peoples lives.

So there is this guy down the row from me on the phone with someone who I’m assuming his is girlfriend/wife. Her name is either Tara or Terri. She called him, and he starts out by saying “I’m on the way home from the doctor and stopped off for some coffee”, so right away I’m listening closer b/c Dr stories are usually good. A few minutes go by and he’s speaking softly and I can’t hear that well and so I tune him out until I hear “decide if i’m going to get a prosthetic” and I’m back. He says something about even if he gets a prosthetic his gate will still be off, so I’m trying to see his legs, but can’t with the way he’s sitting.

So he’s telling Tara/Terri what the doctor said and all of a sudden he starts saying “will you stop yelling in my ear. Would you just stop and let me tell you what the doctor said?! Just stop, just stop, if you would just stop, I can tell you what he said….he didn’t say I shouldn’t get a prosthetic, he said I should consider the options…. STOP yelling in my ear. Stop being so emotional, you aren’t listening.”

And it goes on like that for a few more minutes. Then he says “You aren’t helping me, I’m trying to figure this out, and you’re just yelling in my ear. I’m going to hang up now…. because,  you’re just yelling in my ear. I’m TRYING to tell you what he said, but you’re just yelling in my ear.”

A few more minutes go by with him giving small pieces of new information broken up by “Stop yelling in my ear. Why are you yelling in my ear?” and then he says “Stop being an idiot. You don’t understand anything, why are you trying to tell me what to do when you are an idiot and you aren’t even listening to me?”

Up until this point, I was feeling bad for him, now I feel a bad for her – she may in fact BE an idiot, but she doesn’t deserve to be called that by her partner. They go around a few more times and then he hangs up his phone. 2 seconds later it rings and he answers and he says “I don’t want to have this conversation, you’re an idiot, and you just keep yelling in my ear…I know this effects you too. I know you’re the one helping me and that you’re in this too, but not really. All you do is talk on the phone, drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Now, when I’m trying to talk to you about a choice i have to make, you just keep yelling in my ear and being an idiot.” Then a few minutes go by with her talking and he says “See, right now, you’re better. You can turn it off…. You CAN turn it off.” Few more minutes of her talking, then he says “ok, so he’s saying that while I have pain now, its not that bad, and it could be worse if i have the amputation…. NO, you idiot! It can be worse! I’m not rolling on the ground in pain, i’m not crying out in the middle of night, I’m not unable to function.”

She talks for a few minutes, then “I guess you’re just annoying me right now. I guess that’s just the problem. You’re just really annoying.” 

She talks, then “I would like to be able to walk into the house later and not have you jump all over me, not have you want to rehash all of this. I would like for you to not be an idiot and just be able to talk about this.”

Silence for a few minutes and then I notice that he’s hung up the phone and picked up his book and is calmly reading.

Through the whole conversation he hardly got emotional, everything was just a statement. 

Stories like that remind me why I’m ok being single. Because I could get a guy like that, if all I wanted was to have a man. But I’ll pass. Because I’m not an idiot.

Somehow, the below blog didn’t get published – i must have gotten distracted before I actually hit the publish button. So even though its a little old, i’m publishing it anyway, just because I can’t stand the idea of deleting it after I spent time on it.

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I had planned to have today be the “first day of the rest of my life” (i couldn’t find a non-cliché way of saying that). I had set today as the day because yesterday I finished with a big, yucky client that was the last hold-over from my “old” life.

I probably should have know that today wasn’t the best “launching” day because I always feel like a big pile of crap the day after an event and today is no exception. It doesn’t matter how well the event went, I always feel blah.

But also, and this i didn’t see coming, I seem to have taken a step backward in my attempts to get over Army Guy. Actually I don’t know if backward is the right word, I’m just not over it yet. I’m usually over it much faster than this. I did have a revelation recently though, which might explain it. In general I’ve been pretty unhappy with my life as of late. In august, had a mini-break down over it with my parents, decided on some changes. Came back to my life, and started trying to make the changes, hit some roadblocks, accepted some distractions, and didn’t really achieve a whole hell of a lot. And then I met Army Guy.

The main motivation for staying the course of making a life change was that I was unhappy. Army Guy made me happy. Motivation for change…changed. Which isn’t to say a roadblock -  he was all for the change – he cooked up a plot that had me spending a significant amount of my time writing. I like the idea of that – of the writing, but also of him supporting me in doing that. For the first time, I kinda got the idea of what it would be like to have a “partner” in my life. So its not like I let go of the plan just because I met him. But the urgency, the sense of desperation that I’d felt previously was gone b/c the heightened sense of misery was gone. He made me happy. He gave me a million little bright spots throughout my crappy day. So much so that I hardly noticed how crappy my day was. If I was in a frustrating meeting, or stuck in traffic, or stressing over getting all my work done, at minimum I just had to think of him and I’d feel better. At best, I’d have an email, a phone call, or a plan to see him to get me through. Rushing to get work/housework/ errands done so I could have time to see him: easy. Rushing to get work/housework/errands done just so I can do more work/housework/errands: crappy.

Yesterday/last night at my event, every time something happened that stressed me out, or upset me or made me feel too tired to do another thing, my mind cast around for something good to think about – sort of like forcing yourself to eat your veggis by picturing the piece of cake you’ll get afterward. But there as no cake waiting at the end of my day. Just an empty apartment, a car full of shit that has to get unloaded, and a pile of work to attend to. And everytime my mind cast out looking for the “cake”, I thought of him, then remembered he’s not my bright spot anymore, and felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. This happened so many times over the course of the 14 hour event, that by the evening I was literally physically ill – as if i had actually been kicked in the stomach 37 times. (which mean a perfectly good dinner of crab cakes was wasted – BUT on the bright side, the venue had really nice bathrooms).

This sounds so pathetically “without a man my life is worthless” I want to kick myself in the head. But that’s not it. It just turns out that the thing that was my bright spot was a guy. Its an easy bright spot to have – lots of emotion and hormones make it a good pick me up.

I don’t want it to sound like I have nothing in my life that I enjoy or that I’m grateful for. I have so many wonderful people in my life, a fact I’ve been reminded of so many times recently. And I’m not sure why being aware of my blessings isn’t enough right now. In an attempt to be logical and avoid being any more dramatic, the only answer I can come up with that I miss?/want?/need? the adrenaline rush that comes from something new and fun in my life like a new man, which in honesty has been my drug of choice for years. But I’m also older, and my heart really is broken, and I just don’t have it in me to run out and find a fling to distract me like I did in my 20’s. But I think that if i can find something else to focus on, follow my own break-up advice and find a project to focus on, something that makes me happy, even if just a little bit, I might do better.

And I think if i keep reminding myself that I’m missing the symbolic role that AG had in my life, more than him personally (which on some level is definitely true), that should help.

_________Post Script____________

Before I could post this blog, I had to take a conference call and then I went on a walk and in general now I feel much better about everything, more specifically I feel more able to face the rest of my life – whatever that is. Mornings seem to be my “bad time”, so maybe I shouldn’t blog when I first get up A few minutes ago, I was looking through some pictures to find new ones to put on my eHarmony site (onward and upward!), and I came across some pictures of me and AG, and while I had a slightly nauseated feeling, I didn’t throw up, or cry, and I think that’s an improvement. And then I deleted all of those pictures.

I’m starting to feel better. I’m starting to feel more like myself for the first time. I guess in the grand scheme of things, it hasn’t been all that long, but it has felt like a LONG time. I hate feeling bad, I hate feeling sad, I hate feeling like my emotions control me. I hate that, and fear that, more than almost anything I can think of. 

This morning I woke up and didn’t give in to the impulse to think of him. For the first time since I met him I didn’t immediately go look at my phone to see if there was an email from him. I’ve been awake for an hour and still haven’t looked, which is partly about him, and partly about managing my stress in general. I was hungry this morning and I cooked and ate an egg, which is the most substantial meal I’ve had since wednesday night – and I think its gonna stay in me too! So I’m just focusing on right now, on eating, on sipping my coffee, on writing a blog before I dive into all that awaits for me today.

I’m even feeling a little…I don’t want to say excited, but ready for my event on monday. As I was cooking my egg I thought to myself “yeah, lets knock this damn thing out of the park.” Which is the attitude I must have to get through such a huge and multi-faceted event, and it was the attitude that I couldnt’ access this week and that was stressing me out.

I’m not sure what made the difference today – if it was just passage of time, or the fact that he and I exchanged another round of emails yesterday with more explanations and processing, or the conversation I had last night with a friend I’ve had for 20 years where we talked about the new direction I want to take my life in. Actually, I think that conversation might have a lot to do with me feeling better today.

One of the ways in which Army Guy hooked me in was in his insistance that I should be a writer. He saw the ability, the potential in me and expressed it in a way no one ever really had before – not as a vague “you’re a good writer” way, but a concrete “you must do this as a vocation. Let’s talk about how you make that happen in a concrete way.” I liked the way he saw me, I liked how sure he was that I could do it. That was one of the things, in talking to my friend last night, that I said was hard to let go of.

But last night she, this friend of 20 years, expressed the same vision and the same faith in me, and I realized that I didn’t need this man, this virtual stranger to help me to see who I could be. In fact it meant a lot more coming from her because not only has she known me since we were pre-teens, but she’s an extremely practical person and if she thinks giving up my company to try to earn a living as a writer is doable, than it must be. In many many ways I’m closer to her than my actual sisters, and I can believe in what she sees in me, much more than I believed in what Army Guy saw.

She and I talked about my future, my new future. The one I had started to map out this past August. The one that will take me away from running a business, away from trying to be an executive which has caused me to segment my life – “professional” over here, “creative” over there. She’s the first person I’ve really talked about this change with. Some of my other friends have heard pieces of it, but I haven’t mapped it the actual vision with anyone since coming up with it months ago. I don’t know why, other than perhaps an unconcious fear that these friends, who knew me as a business owner, wouldn’t be able to accept or understand the new plan and would make me doubt myself. It all keeps going back to my need, or at least instinct to segment myself.

Army Guy was the first man who saw “creative” first, and actually was only just about to get a glimpse of “corporate”…Maybe that was part of the cosmic plan. I was sliding back into professional – I was pushing writing aside (as I’ve done my whole life) as work that had been scarce started to flow. I was sliding back into super stressed, 70 hour work weeks with no fullfillment or purpose other than cashing checks (which I know is no small thing. But its not everything.)

The last time I saw him before he left for his trip, the trip where this other chic emailed him and started the unraveling, I was trying to talk to him about my fears at getting sucked back into the corporate life style. I wanted him to say “don’t do it. Fight it. Stay on the new path, everything will be ok.” But he didn’t. He said “you can’t pass up money,” and “You know what you need to do? Organize your objectives and goals for the next 18  months and then work to accomplish them.” It was an unsatisfying answer to say the least, and I remember thinking “ok, fine. We’ll let him see what i’m like when I’m ‘corporate girl’ and see if he’s sings a different tune.” And then he was plucked away, and maybe that’s why – he wasn’t going to help me make this change in my life afterall, he was perhaps nothing more than a sign, a signal in the road (as I suggested previously, a spirit guide of sorts) meant to help illuminate part of the path. AND, the reason he had to go now, at this stressful and busy time of my life, was maybe to remind me of just how much I don’t like this lifestyle. If he had dumped me next week, it would have sucked in all the same emotional and psychic ways, but I wouldn’t have also had to juggle so many professional comitments and be reminded of just how burnt out on it all I am, and just how little satisfaction or joy I get from doing this kind of work. It seems like all of the major turning points in my life have been forced by extremely dramatic or traumatic events, so maybe I just keep needing a cosmic slap in the face to get me moving.

A cosmic slap in the face. Yeah, I think that’s as good a description of this week as any.

I’m not fooling myself into thinking that I’m not still gonna feel like crap at points over the next couple of days, but I think I’ve turned a corner. I think yesterday was the worst of it (I hope.) I’m focusing on Tuesday – Tuesday will be the start of the rest of my life, my new life (I’ll write another post about what the new life will look like later. Right now both of my blackberry’s – yes I have two blackberrys. Yes I’m one of THOSE people. But only on the surface – are blinking at me, and I need to dive into my day.) But I’ve made it  90 minutes this morning without feeling like I’ve been kicked in the stomach. So I’ve got that going for me.

I was doing ok today, overall. I was processing quickly, and I was having revelations about myself and I was finding the lessons and I was doing ok. I was intellectualizing. I was focusing on the fact that I’m not scared to be single, I’m not mourning the loss of the relationship, but the loss of him. Army Guy.

He sent me something of an apology/explanation email today. And I sat on it for several hours, going through my day and turning it over in the back of my mind, trying to decide what, if anything, to write back. Late this afternoon I finally sat down and wrote a long email back. I said everything I wanted to say, and I felt good. Better than I’d felt in a few days actually, because I’d known something was wrong for a couple of days. And I kept that good feeling with me for a while. And I talked to my brother and processed intellectually. And I had dinner with a girlfriend, and I processed intellectually. And I talked about him. And I see now that that was an act of keeping him with me for a little while longer. And my girlfriend and I got off the topic of him and my relationship specifically and we started talking about abstract concepts of war and politics and the military as an institution. Her boyfriend is military, and we talked about what she knew from him and I talked about what I knew from Army Guy and it was a good conversation because it let me invoke him in an abstract way, but it let me keep him with me a little while longer. And I felt good. I felt whole for the first time since he told me he couldn’t see me anymore.

And then we exhausted that topic of conversation, and we talked about a few other things, and then my phone rang, and I didn’t take the call, but I remembered my phone – my blackberry, with email. And for so many weeks that blackberry has been my main connection to him. For so many weeks I’ve pulled up the email screen with only one thought “Will there be an email from him?.” This was my thought when he was here and we emailed several times a day because it was always a bright spot to get an email from him – to see what funny, or sweet, or interesting thing he had to share. And I thought this when he was traveling and I got intermittent emails because it was my connection to him. And I looked at my blackberry tonight, and I knew there would be no email from him. I knew, without doubt, he would not reply to my email b/c he has made a decision and he will commit to that decision and follow through on it in the way that Army Guys do.

And yet, a pang of disapointment when I scrolled through my emails and didn’t see his name. And then the pang became consuming, and I started to shake. There will never be another email from him him. There will never be another phone call, there will never be any more Army Guy. And I realized that the feeling I was having, the sort of anxious, nervous, itchy feeling, was the feeling I got when I was waiting for an email from him when he was off the grid or traveling. And I realized that I had a window of time where I could go without contact with him before I went into withdrawl.

I’ve developed a dependency on him – not literally, but emotionally. I can only go a few hours before I need a hit. I fooled myself today – I carried the unopened email for 2 hours. I contemplated my response for 4 hours. I spent an hour writing the response and 2 hours talking about him. I was tricking myself into thinking I still had him. But the empty blackberry reminded me of the truth. And I was literally in withdrawl. Shaking. Heart racing. Eyes burning. Itchy on the inside.  Its ridiculous. Its withdrawl. Its heartbreaking and aweful.

I wish my biggest issue was a fear or sadness at being single, because there are things to be done about that. Plans to be made to find another man. If all I wanted was another man to fill the void, I could have an action plan and that I could focus on to get me through the next few days.

But I don’t want any man. I want him. I want his deep brown eyes, and the shoulder that fit my head so perfectly. I want his soft voice with the twinge of southern drawl on the phone tomorrow morning teasing me about “sleeping in” until 8:30. I want to know what he thinks about the debates, and I want to hear the laughter in his voice when he provokes me with a conservative statement. I want to see him in his khaki t-shirt sitting on the edge of my bed while he laces up his boots before work. I want him. And he doesn’t want me. And there is a part of me that accepts that, and a part of me that just doesn’t. That doesn’t understand how he could walk away so easily. I know, because he’s army guy, that he was faced with a decision, he bulleted the salient points for each side, made a decision and acted on it. Its an adaptive skill that every career soldier developes. It is literally a survival skill. I get that intellectually. But emotionally, I can’t accept that. I think he’s crazy. I think he made a mistake, not just b/c I’m the jilted one, but because I think he made the decision for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. In his own words, it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the fact that he had invested more time into that relationship and had an opportunity for a do-over, and he was taking it. Nothing to do with me. How does that make sense? And how is that fair to her? And how is that going to work? And why do I care? I care because I care about him, and i can’t just turn it off. I’m afraid that he’s making a mistake and he’s going to regret it. And because I know that if that were to be the case, he would not be able to come back. I would not let him. But he knows that, and so he won’t try to come back. If it doesn’t work with this girl, I’ll never know. And its probably better that way.

I’m rambling. I’m intellectualizing, because it makes the shaking stop and distracts me from the feeling that something is missing from me. Its an actual feeling like I’ve misplaced my phone or my keys. But its just him that’s missing.

If i’m honest, I’d predict this will only last another day or so. I’d say its exaggerated b/c i only had about 4 restless hours of sleep last night and that if I sleep well tonight tomorrow will be better. It has to be. I have work to do. I have to get back to my life.

I process quickly. Its how I cope. I look for contexts and frameworks to understand things I don’t understand or that are sad, scary, painful, even extremely happy or exciting.

I believe that everything happens for a reason.

I believe in the power of the universe. I don’t believe in god. Not in any traditional sense. I subscribe to beliefs in The Secret, even though its become cliche and mocked in popular culture.

Army Guy came into my life at a time a massive turmoil and upheaval and uncertainty about who I was, and what I wanted out of my life. And at the time I tried to understand what the Universe was getting at sending him to me at that moment. By all accounts I was in no place to start a relationship. And yet, (seemingly) here was this awesome guy.

Well now I’m not sure he was meant to stay. I think he was sent to show me a few things, make me laugh, give me something fun to focus on while my life sorted itself out. Because in the time I knew him a lot of things sorted themselves out in the rest of my life. At the risk of sounding totally off my nut, and making my friends think they need to lock me up, I feel like he might have been a spirit guide.

I haven’t done a lot of reading or research on the concept of “spirit guides,” but I know the concept figures in a lot of ancient stories, native american stories (vision quests often involve finding your spirit guide), and a quick google search found this definition “they are souls or spirits that have lived many lifetimes and have gained much wisdom. They are there to help and assist you and are your friends, in fact they are the best friends that you have. They do truly love you and would NEVER do anything to harm you in any way. And even though you may not consciously know it at this time, you already know them. You picked them to help you before you were born and they agreed to be your helpers.”

Some could argue that he did me harm by breaking up with me, but if we look more closely at the idea of harm – I’m pretty unscathed. He didn’t break up with me because of anything I did, which would have made existing scars deeper, he didn’t disapear, he didn’t lie etc. I mean, really, it could have been so much worse.

Here is what I learned from him, and why I think he falls into the category of a spirit guide:

1. almost immediately upon meeting me, he told me I should be a writer as a career. He’d only read my emails, he barely knew me, and yet hit on my secret desire. He was adament about it and stayed on me to keep it as a priority as I sorted out my professional options.

2. He showed me that the “rules” and other superstitious things I subscribed to to keep a relationship going were crap. I’ve tried to develop these guidelines, jinxes to avoid etc. to keep a new relationship alive. Don’t let him meet my friends too soon, don’t talk about the future, don’t reveal secrets, don’t let him see every side of my personality right away. Well with army guy, I flew in the face of all of those things and they weren’t the reason it ended. He was obsessed with talking about my failed relationships and bad dates. And he was tireless in pointing out the ways in which the things that went wrong were the result of short sitedness, immaturity, and ignorance on the part of the guys. And he was right. A normal, well adjusted man should not freak out at meeting my friends. A normal, well adjusted mature man should be able to be on time, call when he says he’s going to, be reliable, supportive and accessible.

3. I can be fully myself and be accepted. I’ve always hid one side or another of myself from the men I’ve dated. I’d emphasize the business executive and downplay the storyteller, I’d emphasize the creative and down play the corporate. I’d obsessively clean my apartment and car to hide the chaotic mess that is the real space i live in. I pretend to be strong when I’m scared and needy when I’m not. But not with him. And those were the parts of me liked the best. The chaotic, storytelling, independent sides, all at the same time.

4. I learned that I am ready for a relationship and that I need to let go the hubris that is believing I can control how and when they start, grow or end. Because I can’t.

One of the first thoughts that occured to me after he left last night was “how do i start this again? How do I begin to walk down this path with someone else, its so hard!” But suddenly it occurs to me that it doesn’t have to be that hard. The hard part is trying to guess who I should be, which jinxes i’m invoking, and trying to find the secret to making it work, to making this one stay. And that’s what’s exhausting.

I don’t pretend that it won’t be terrifying to start again, that it won’t be exruciating the next time I find someone who I think could be “it”. But that’s normal fear, normal stress. I don’t need to add more by trying to control what can’t be controlled. So I’ve decided that going forward, I’m going to put into practice what I learned from Army Guy (spirit guide). I’m going to be fully and completely myself. I’m going to invite him into my life without losing myself in the process. And if he can hang, cool. And if he can’t, oh well.

It’s ridiculous to let fear of the pain of it ending be what stops me. Because clearly, if there is one thing I know how to do, its move on.

PS – just incase it seems like I’m grasping at straws in processing this experience like this to insulate myself – i’m not. I’m still devestated. I’m still crying. I’m still hurt and confused and I’m still thinking about things that I want to tell him and then remembering all over again that its over. But I’m also pulling myself together in the way that I do.

I’ve been busy lately, and have gotten behind on my blogging. I was working on a really intellectual blog about the concept of collective joy and concerts, and then it transitioned into a discussion of my fears at being in a new relationship and how I was afraid I was short changing him by bringing my baggage from past (bad) relationships into this relationship. This relationship – the one where he kept telling me that he wasn’t like the other guys. That I could trust him. He wouldn’t hurt me. At the time I thought, “yeah right.” And I wasn’t just being cynical. I’ve dated guys who have said those exact same words before breaking my heart. And turns out, Army Guy is no exception. Except in the way that he is.

He’s an exception because he was the most mature, most intelligent, most reliable man I’d dated. He was an exception because he didn’t just say the right words, he did the right things, right up until the end.

He came over to dump me in person. Cause that’s what good guys do. He was nice enough to let me look at his face, that beautiful face that I will never see again, while he told me that he had started talking to a past girlfriend this week. This past week, while he’s been in Greece. While he was in Greece, and I was sitting here, missing him, and hating the experience of missing him, and convincing myself that this was part of being in a relationship, taking the good with the bad. While i was doing that, he was in Greece reconnecting via email with his old girlfriend.

He came over and I knew immediately that something was wrong. And yet, I didn’t immediately think it was over. I thought there was a problem with work, that he was going to have to go away again. (Look how trusting I became!). I asked him what was wrong, and got a look, and he said “lets sit down”. And I still didn’t think it was over, until he said “I suck at this.” Then I knew.

I told him to just spill it. He said “I don’t know if I mentioned much about the girl I was seeing a few months ago.” I didn’t say anything (would it have mattered if he HAD mentioned her?). He said that he’d “fucked that relationship up royaly”. And she wanted to give it another chance. He said “if i seemed distant this week (and he had), that’s why.”

He had told me this past saturday that he was coming back on tuesday morning. This morning (tuesday) he emailed to tell me he’d driven back early this morning and was at work. Tonight, while sitting on my couch, he told me he’d driven back last night and had gone to meet her “Just for drinks. Nothing happened.” (Would it matter at this point?)

At that point I phased out a little. I stared at him, at that face that I loved to look at. At that Army uniform that had once freaked me out and had become comforting, I looked at him and I thought I’m never going to look at that face again. I’m never going to feel those camo clad arms around me again.

And then I heard him say “I told her I was seeing someone, and I didn’t know if i could walk away from her. And then we met for drinks…”

And that was all I needed to hear. Because clearly, he could walk away from me, that was the bottome line, the punch line to the story. And I didn’t need to hear him say it. I didn’t need to hear why she was better than me. Why I’m someone you walk away from and she’s not.

So I stood up and said…something. I don’t really remember. It was something along the lines of “Ok, fine.” I think he tried to say something, maybe that he was sorry, and I think I said something like “whatever. I have work to do.” I remember walking to my desk and sitting down, with my back to the door. I remember thinking that I wasn’t going to let him see me cry. I sat at my computer as I heard the door close and the leaves crunch as he walked to his car, and I heard the distinctive sound of his sports car’s engine start up and that’s when I lost it.

I went back to my bedroom and called one of my friends and was sobbing before I’d even hit send. All I could think, all I could say as I waited for her to come over was “OH MY GOD. Oh my god.”

And as I told the story to the second friend to come over, I realized that I didn’t care about being single again. I never minded being single. I mind that he’s not in my life anymore. I got into a relationship because of him, because of his sense of humor, his intelligence, his deep chocolate colored eyes that I loved to look into (and I am NOT a “gazing into each other’s eyes” kind of girl). I stopped being single because I sat across a table from him at a mexican restaurant and I thought “i would be safe in those arms.” And that’s what hurts. That’s what sucks. The loss of him. The fact that he was so much more to me than I was to him.

I can’t process that its over. I keep forgetting, and I think of something that I want to tell him and then like a band aid being ripped off again, i remember. And it hurts. Holy god does it hurt. 

He invaded my life so completely, litterally over-night. From the first email it was non-stop. And just as quickly its gone. I guess that’s the thing. 0-60 goes 60-0 just as easily.

We talked about everything, we had long drawn out conversations in person and on email about everything from the trivial, to the emotional. And it was over in less than 5 minutes.  And I think that’s part of the problem – part of why it doesn’t feel real.

I’ve been drinking for 4 hours. Why am I not unconcious yet ?